Washington, DC - The American Civil Liberties Union today urged that Congress
subpoena all of the Justice Department documents relating to the NSA warrantless
wiretapping program and the new FISA court-approved program in light of the
testimony yesterday that Deputy Attorney General James Comey made at a hearing
before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The testimony yesterday clearly indicated that not only did the Bush
administration reauthorize the NSA program in 2004 without a signature from the
Justice Department; it reauthorized the program even after both the Attorney
General and Comey, the acting Attorney General determined that the program was
illegal.

"The public still knows very little about the evolution of the warrantless
surveillance program, what kinds of surveillance the NSA is currently
conducting, and what the FISA court has purportedly authorized," said Caroline
Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "Congress
should use its subpoena power to unearth the legal memos discussed in former
Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Comey's testimony and also to compel
government officials to testify."

Don’t Let the Bells off the Hook for Their Role in Illegal
Spying

These new Department of Justice revelations come on the eve of a crucial mark
up in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The committee will mark up
their intelligence reauthorization bill in a closed session tomorrow and
telecommunications companies are aggressively seeking retroactive immunity for
any involvement in illegal NSA spying activities from Sept. 12, 2001 forward.

"Letting phone companies off the hook sets a dangerous precedent,"
Fredrickson said. "With new revelations and questions regarding the legality of
the NSA’s program, we can hardly sit by and allow telecom companies to be
inoculated for their involvement. There’s absolutely no way they should be
handed a get-out-of-jail-free card for willingly violating the privacy of
Americans."

During their involvement in the NSA’s program, the telecom companies provided
customer call data on millions of Americans without any suspicion of wrongdoing.
Immunizing telecom companies from both criminal prosecution and civil liability
would not only set a dangerous precedent, it would send a message to Americans
that their privacy may be violated for profit. The ACLU noted that this rush to
retroactive immunity for an entire industry, in the absence of a full and
thorough airing of the facts, is unprecedented.

DOJ Deemed the NSA Program Illegal

In early 2006, soon after the NSA's illegal activities became public, the
ACLU filed suit on behalf of a coalition of criminal defense attorneys,
journalists, and scholars challenging the NSA's warrantless surveillance of
Americans' calls and emails. The government responded to the suit not by
defending the legality of the NSA's surveillance activities, but by invoking
secrecy as the basis for dismissing the suit. The administration argued to the
courts that the NSA's surveillance was so secret that not even a court could
determine its legality. In August 2006, a federal court in Michigan agreed with
the ACLU that the program was illegal.

While the case was on appeal, the administration announced that it had sought
and obtained some kind of belated authorization from the FISA court, but claimed
that the president could continue to disregard FISA and engage in warrantless
surveillance at any time.

"Mr. Comey's testimony paints a profoundly disturbing picture of senior
government officials willing to act in complete disregard of the Justice
Department and in complete disregard of settled law," said Jameel Jaffer,
Director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. "The testimony is particularly
chilling because the president and his closest advisors continue to assert the
authority to disregard the relevant law -- the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act -- even today."

FISA generally requires that intelligence surveillance conducted in the U.S.
be conducted under the oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The NSA program, however, operated without the oversight of the FISA court until
very recently. Disturbingly, even now, the President asserts the authority as
commander in chief to ignore FISA whenever he sees fit. The ACLU emphasized
that, although the program received DOJ approval in 2004, the program continues
to violate FISA and the Constitution.

"Revelation after revelation regarding this administration’s domestic spying
program has crumbled the already shaky legal ground on which it stood,"
Fredrickson said. "We can only imagine how much further into illegal territory
the administration waded. Without a doubt and without hesitation, Congress must
step up to the plate and categorically demand the legal blueprints to this
unconstitutional program."